Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Save the Buffalos
The video we watched last week on the buffalo in Yellowstone National Park was very thought provoking. One of the driving forces to save particular animals is based on that animals charismatic appeal to us as humans. We often overlook an animals importance to a particular group of people. When a species' significance is narrowed down to speak to a particular group of humans, such as Native Americans, the beliefs toward that animal become stronger. In other words, the American Buffalo are significantly more important to Native Americans than to the general public. This obvious fact was taken advantage of by the film makers. The film contained several Native Americans that were able to show much more sincere sadness towards the buffalo than anyone randomly chosen from the acting guild might have been able to. This brought a whole new feeling to the film. Having the particular group of people affected by the loss of Buffalo, introduced a very strong emotional appeal to the film.
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I agree with Tyler that animals have a particular appeal to a certain group of people and, therefore, receive more attention based on emotional appeal. American Buffalo are significant to the American culture and past as a significant icon of pioneer days. Using references to other symbols for the time (e.g. American Indians, prairies, Wild West imagery) it appeals on Americans' desires for the past. However, I think that this can be problematic because preference can come in to play when choosing which animals to help. For example, people would be more apt to want to protect penguins than a type of worm. Why? Obviously, because the penguin is cute and has emotional appeal and attachment. Penguins appear to exhibit behavior that humans can relate to such as creation of families. Worms on the other hand exhibit nothing human and nothing cute. Unfortunately some non-cute or non-"significant" species are being ignored because we don't identify with them on an emotional level.
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